Burnoff lights up mount

Darren Gray

Firefighters have burnt to within metres of the television transmission towers on Mount Dandenong in a bid to protect them, the nearby community and tourism assets and the thousands of people who live on top of the Dandenongs.

The 30-hectare fuel reduction burn was conducted on the north-west face of Mount Dandenong, one of about 100 burns ignited last week in Victoria across about 70,000 hectares.

The high-priority burn - ignited in the morning and completed after dark last Wednesday - would have made a striking evening scene for residents of the suburbs below.

It was the first time the site had had a fuel-reduction burn in 10 years. Three lives were lost in a bushfire in the Dandenongs in January 1997.

Last week's activity was the busiest period of the program that has treated about 136,000 hectares this financial year.

''We've got about 240,000 hectares prepared and ready to go … it's just a matter of what the weather does,'' the deputy chief fire officer of the Department of Environment and Primary Industries, Darrin McKenzie, said.

To help, authorities have increased the use of helicopters dropping small incendiary balls to ignite the forest. This was particularly useful for large burns in remote country, Mr McKenzie said. The hope is for modest rain in the dry west to moisten the countryside and reduce risk, followed by a run of stable, sunny days.